


who suffers by his ill whims? him, always.

by onlyeli



Series: danganronpa studies. [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, a lot of focus on toges and the imposter, killing game babey, the future foundation watching the simulation is such good fanfic fuel, the running theme in this WAS sm i found funny and then it made me sad, the title is from a christmas carol i think i am soooo deep and meaningful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 06:55:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17658080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyeli/pseuds/onlyeli
Summary: the night they hold the party, he’s awake and alone. both of these things are not unusual ways to describe byakuya -- in fact, he’s more often than not one or the other these days, when his temper is short and morale is sinking. people find it easier to give him a wide berth and a fresh coffee every hour or so, and that suits him just fine.





	who suffers by his ill whims? him, always.

it takes byakuya little time to realise that the future foundation refuses to play by the same rules as the conglomerate. 

for the first time since he was very young, his voice is not the loudest in any given room. his ideas can and will be dismissed as if they meant nothing whatsoever (and, in some very rare cases, they can actually mean nothing whatsoever). he has to scramble to stay afloat, utilise what little teamwork skill he’d built whilst locked inside hope’s peak. it’s adversity, yes, but he is a togami. since before he could walk, he’s been knocking problems out of his path and advancing still. he will survive this, just as he had survived all else.

so, togami byakuya throws himself into the familiar confines of work. from behind a desk, through a headset, over a monitor, he orders and plans. despite his petulant disdain, he’s content to leave the field work to his colleges and friend; he’s got a line that feeds directly to makoto, and he checks it at least once every week they’re apart. he refuses to use the radio terminology they attempt to teach him, but obediently signs on and off every time, making careful note of naegi’s progress. 

it’s like this for months. when makoto smuggles the despairs to jabberwock island, byakuya merely presses his lips together and turns a blind eye. he doesn’t condone, simply ignores, and the plan continues without his input. when all’s ready to commence, however, togami offers his assistance as easily as he offers a roll of his eyes -- no one as incompetent as naegi could pull something like this off without his careful observation. 

that’s what he says, anyway.

they take turns as often as they can, but watching the island usually accumulates in the survivors crowding around byakuya’s monitor (the largest and clearest of the lot, naturally), limp with fatigue and wracked by tension. he blusters and complains, but, more often than not, byakuya is mere inches from the screen, tongue pressed against his teeth, the reflection of the beaches flickering across the frames of his glasses. he stays there long after the others have retreated to their stations or bedrooms, either ignoring or waving away their concern. if he can’t control the simulation, he’ll work out the finale long before the credits roll. it’s comforting to believe he can predict an ending in which no one else has to die.

despite the reputation he’s built for himself, he doesn’t enjoy watching the students panic and gripe. largely, he sees their complaints as unnecessary and even pettish -- being living proof that a killing game is survivable has done nothing to ensure his empathy for other participants. when they start up their agitated discussions, he simply switches camera feed and watches the waves batter the sand. for the first few days, this is enough; it’s peaceful, and they don’t need him watching their every waking moment.

the night they hold the party, he’s awake and alone. both of these things are not unusual ways to describe byakuya -- in fact, he’s more often than not one or the other these days, when his temper is short and morale is sinking. people find it easier to give him a wide berth and a fresh coffee every hour or so, and that suits him just fine. 

the fluorescent lights overhead switch off periodically, bathing him in darkness. they’re motion sensors, designed to save electricity in the face of the incident, and they refuse to pick up on the rise and fall of togami’s chest, the minute way his jaw clenches and unclenches. each time the room goes black, byakuya is forced to throw up an arm in frustration, fingers splayed in order to catch the attention of the sensor. 

the party isn’t exactly byakuya’s definition of important, but it’s an event all the same, and a dangerously bold one at that. his counterpart is certainly brave. 

it’s always jarring to hear his own voice through a set of speakers, tinny and faraway. it’s just familiar enough to definitely be his voice, but gives him the same sensation he’d get watching a recording of himself back again. the imposter is not (by any means, according to byakuya) a perfect imitation, but they’re good enough to leave him itching, spinning his fountain pen between his fingers. he doesn’t oft remove the pen from his pocket (a sentiment he can’t explain and won’t attempt to), and the urge to do so allows him to admit that the discomfort he’s feeling is genuine and distinguished.

sometimes, though togami would never say so aloud, even he struggles to see a fake. when he’s tired, like now, the differences between his body and the one he watches blur at the edges. the glint of his -- their -- glasses is the same, the tight-lipped arrogance, the subtle raise of his -- their -- chin, every scoff and huff near identical. 

sometimes, byakuya makes an expression that the imposter mirrors almost in the same instant, as if the cameras somehow lead both ways. when he becomes indignant, he’s seized by a desire to accept, abandon his questions, nod and confirm. it’s nothing he can’t shake off (literally), but it’s a sensation he doesn’t enjoy all the same. 

when he stills, the lights go off. he raises an arm, and they shudder back to life.

it’s a testament to the imposter’s accuracy that togami hums in approval of the body check. it’s not a task he’d carry out himself -- not when pekoyama, nekomaru and owari seem more than capable candidates for the job -- but the thought had crossed byakuya’s mind as soon as he’d heard that the plan was to gather the students in the same area. considering the killing game he’d beaten had far higher stakes than this one, byakuya likes to believe he’d earned a penchant for being a few steps ahead. for the most part, he’s right.

‘emergencies only,’ the imposter reassures hinata, who asks too many questions for togami’s liking. byakuya feels his lip curl in something that isn’t distaste, but isn’t approval, either: there’s something all too chivalrous in this charade, an altruistic angle that the real byakuya had simply never attempted. it’s irritating, a small detail that works its way beneath togami’s skin and sits there to fester. 

byakuya flicks to the monitor in the main hall, watching the partygoers mill around tables and each other. they’re all so awkward it would be laughable, were he not so tense. togami watches them closely, gaze awash with scrutiny and just a little intrigue. he remembers very little of class seventy-seven before the incident -- there’s something a little captivating about getting to see them as they were before junko had bared her claws.

after a little while, the imposter enters the room. byakuya is pleased by the small hush that ripples through the crowd when he enters -- they enter -- and his spine straightens on instinct. 

the lights wink out again, and byakuya simply leans back and flicks a hand dismissively -- as if sentient and understanding, the fluorescents buzz, beaming much quicker than before. 

the smug connection he feels to the projection is severed almost as soon as it had been woven, however. after a small conversation (they discuss attendance, and togami can only roll his eyes at the so-called gangster, who is missing), the imposter beelines towards the buffet with a reckless abandon byakuya had gouged out of himself by age nine and tears into the prepared food with so much gusto that byakuya must avert his eyes. the sound of meat being chewed and ripped resounds from the speakers nevertheless. togami is reminded rather vividly of blonde hair, pink gore, spears that had both appeared and disappeared without a trace. this thought causes a wave of nausea so strong that byakuya’s vision whites out, and he only slips back into full awareness when his own voice cuts through the noise.

‘i must take full responsibility and claim it,’ the imposter says, and byakuya finds himself nodding before he can clear his head. his tone is a commanding one, even when it isn’t byakuya himself speaking. reminding himself that the imposter is not simply a recording is both simple and yet excruciating -- each time he forgets, a sensation similar to the one he felt when waking up at hope’s peak crashes over him. the sense memory means danger, a certain level of unsafety that byakuya hasn’t yet learned how to deal with. he tends to gloss over the fact that he, too, was inches away from death at any given moment (perhaps even closer than some of his more amiable classmates).

when the imposter takes hinata from the room, byakuya neglects to follow them for just a moment. he hovers over the main hall camera, lips twisted in apprehension. each time a despair opens their mouths to speak, a little colour drains from the affluent progeny’s face; it takes him at least a minute to accept that no one is going to discuss what they had just seen, and yet another minute to identify the cold flood across his shoulders as relief. 

the lights go out. as togami shifts the mouse to open up the kitchen’s camera, they hum back on again.

‘i suspect that my sceptical nature is to blame,’ the imposter is saying, and byakuya feels himself begin to frown. it is one thing to be robbed of a face, a name, a voice, a talent, but it’s another entirely to be assigned brand new attributes. in no way does togami consider himself sceptical -- orderly, perhaps. realistic. they fit snugly in with byakuya’s perception of himself.

‘it was inevitable that i would end up this way,’ comes next. byakuya huffs, though something that had been tightening his chest is gone, now. that might just be the only intelligent thing the imposter has said since waking up. inevitable means _choice does not matter_ , means _the blame is outsourced_ , means _change is not byakuya’s responsibility_. it means he’s right, always been right, and that is something he is all too familiar with. 

the lights go out. togami picks up one of asahina’s pens and hurls it across the room. they come back on again.

the word past is brought up more than once, and each time byakuya feels it lodge behind his teeth, unmovable and all-absorbing. he swallows thickly, but his throat remains dry. much like when watching the main hall, he finds himself rigid with something he can’t name, knee bobbing slightly and sporadically. this is enough to keep the blasted lights on but not enough to alleviate the strained nature of his back, shoulders, and neck. the past is something only togami should lay claim to -- someone wearing his face has no right to discuss something so personal. 

in accordance with the way things tend to play out for byakuya, the imposter keeps their mouth shut.

hanamura enters the kitchen. togami switches cameras. of all the despairs, the cook may just be his least favourite.

byakuya can’t help but wonder why the imposter bothered to gather all the students together only to split them up, bit by bit. pekoyama volunteers to safeguard the ‘weapons’ (unsurprising, considering she had been looking gradually more uncomfortable the longer she stood surrounded by classmates), meaning their greatest threat and defence has been eliminated from the room. this, naturally, seems counterproductive to byakuya -- despite his scorn for fukawa, she had provided ample defence in the form of genocider syo. if this imposter were as accurate as they claim, they would have recruited pekoyama as something similar.

the lights go out as komaeda spins his tale, insisting that the storage room is too cluttered to manoeuvre. ‘you’re kidding,’ byakuya mumbles, glasses sliding down his nose; both the darkness and nagito’s shoddy attempt at truth are waved away by a limp and weary wrist.

next to leave is nanami, a dozy girl with a docile expression. in a lapse of sense, togami wonders if she, too, wears a skirt to stave off ridicule. the gentleness of her features is all too familiar -- but, then, of course it is. this technology that byakuya pours over is his, chihiro’s, designed and directed by hands that togami can no longer picture moving. it’s ridiculous and childish, but a chill ghosts over the hairs on the back of byakuya’s neck. he spins in his chair for just a moment to prove the emptiness of the room to himself. 

when he turns back, the party has begun.

it goes on for a while, longer than togami suspects his own class could have lasted, but he is all too aware of the fact something is bound to go wrong. with the announcement of a killing game comes a need stronger than any other; to return home unscathed. not only to play, but to win and outwit. that can’t be something the conglomerate spun within him -- if it were, there would have been far more bloodshed.

the chaos that erupts does not amuse him in the slightest. togami, while entertained by the so-taught-they-tremble nature of class trials, does not enjoy meaningless pandemonium. when voices raise, he winces, leans to lower the volume on the speakers by a few notches. even the imposter shares the same sentiment; ‘why can’t you all act a little more mature?’ they ask, in the same instant byakuya thinks the same thing. 

a small mechanical noise sounds. it’s subtle enough that byakuya assumes it’s a problem with his headset -- this is disproved when the imposter notes the noise themselves.

the lights go off. so does the monitor.

byakuya scoffs, splaying his hands in a question. as he moves, the light bursts back into the room, but his computer screen remains black. he’s about to lean over and adjust the settings, cursing the faulty electricity in the foundation’s headquaters, when a voice from the party shares the truth; ‘it’s a blackout!’

he understands in that same instant. something surges in his chest, the curse of knowing exactly what’s to come next and the knowledge that he can’t prevent exactly that. ‘makoto!’ he demands, voice perhaps lower than usual but nonetheless loud. he’s giving an order, but it doesn’t feel much like he’s going to be obeyed. ‘asahina! yasuhiro! kyoko!’

it isn’t a cry for help -- simply to summon his collegues to witness the inevitable. 

the avatars on the screen continue to panic and yell to each other, which only serves to build stress where once there was none -- togami rises from his chair if only to sit down again, steeple his fingers and lean towards the monitor. ‘come on, you imbeciles,’ he says, tone low and severe. he can’t tell which participants he’s appealing to.

‘what the hell?’ his voice barks in reply. ‘what’s going on here?’

byakuya opens his mouth to answer before he rights himself once more.

he takes to chewing the inside of his cheek as he waits for the screen to light up again. this, he decides, is worse than having to watch an execution -- being uncertain is far more despair-inducing than knowing exactly what one sees is truthful. the other members of the future foundation have begun to stir and wake, noises from far off down the hall alerting him to their approach. even so, when the lights come back on for class seventy-seven, byakuya is still alone.

tsumiki had somehow slipped in the darkness, and the despairs busy themselves by picking her up. byakuya grimaces, fights the urge to switch cameras; the sight makes him almost as sick as the imposter had at the start of the party, but not quite.

sonia declares him missing. chastising himself for his insecurity, byakuya glances at his hands. he’s tangible in this world. that isn’t enough to relax him.

‘togami?’ makoto says as he enters the room, bleary and shoddily dressed, both his shoes untied. byakuya simply waves him over, mouth viced shut. as they conspire his whereabouts, naegi comes closer, quiet and careful.

byakuya aches with impatience. the truth of the situation has dawned on him already, though he longs to experience the ignorance of class seventy-seven. they search ineffectively as asahina pokes her head through the doorway, followed shortly by kyoko. yasuhiro most likely won’t be woken by a simple shout, but that’s fine by togami. the less people that bear witness to what he knows is coming, the better. 

‘under the table,’ kirigiri says, and byakuya can only nod.

naegi frowns, turning to face her. it must be nice, to be able to tear one’s eyes from the screen before them. ‘you don’t think...?’ 

‘they’re ultimate despairs, makoto,’ byakuya says, voice a little hoarse. he swallows before he continues. ‘of course we _think_.’

they watch the rest in silence.

it’s all at once, the flashes of pink and brown and white and gold.  face down and covered in blood, byakuya togami lies dead. his now-unkept hair obscures his face down to his cheekbones, glasses broken at the bridge, white suit stained and dirtied. the floorboards are drenched and, if owari’s expression is anything to go by, reeking. already, his skin has begun to pale and sink, stretching, paper-like, over bones that were not visible a few minutes ago. the longer they stare, the thinner and frailer he looks -- too weak, upon a glance, for the title _affluent progeny_. a large knife, drenched in pink and, somehow, green, sits neatly by his side, too perfectly to feel shocking or gory. for all intents and purposes, it’s a neat little crime, cleaner and quicker than some would say togami deserves.

for a second, no one is sure how to react.

the nature of the impsoter’s ability seems to lie, if their nominal memories are to be believed, in coersion, rather than imitation. the mind can be convinced of a great many things, if conditioned in the correct way. for at least a moment, everyone observing the now-deceased ultimate imposter had been persuaded to believe, one way or another, that they were byakuya togami.

asahina muffles a cry, and that breaks the spell.

byakuya pushes himself backwards in revulsion, the wheels of his chair wobbling dangerously, the backrest colliding cruelly with naegi’s stomach. 

makoto careens into kyoko, who catches him with little complaint. 

togami’s headset is yanked from the crown of his head unceremoniously, falling to the floor with a clatter that, if he were a dramatic man, would seem to echo around the room in triplicate. something is pounding inside him, head and chest and stomach, shaking every joint and constricting every nerve ending. 

naegi blanches, still winded, and struggles to stand upright and independent from kyoko. ‘togami --’

‘don’t, makoto,’ he snaps, pointing with a finger that trembles. as soon as he notices the deft quiver in his gesture, togami lowers his hand, clenches it into a fist so tight one of his nails breaks the skin on his palm. ‘it’s about time the rest of you stopped lazing around and watched them, anyway. this was your plan, wasn’t it?’ 

they stare at him, quiet and (togami pales even further at the realisation) pitying. 

‘what are you slack-jawed plebians looking at? surely you can’t be fooled by that -- by the --’ he struggles, too furious and overwhelmed to find a word to encompass the imposter, ‘ _thing_ on the screen! that imitation of me! i’m stood right in front of you. i am still alive. am i not?’ 

they know him perhaps too well. they answer.

‘of course,’ kyoko says, in a tone that byakuya doesn’t read as condescending. she’s smart in that respect, at least. the smooth quality of her voice drowns out naegi’s stuttering and aoi’s wide-eyed blustering. ‘we’ll continue to watch, togami. your shift is over.’

he doesn’t complain or disobey. naegi has moved in front of the monitor, leaning too close to the screen to be comfortable (he’s cross-eyed in his efforts, as it happens), asahina lent over his shoulder, byakuya’s headset in hand. togami doesn’t catch a look at the crime scene again before he leaves, sweeping through the doors on legs that seem reluctant to hold him up.

more than once, he pauses on the way to his room in order to lean against a wall and breathe. he must be overtired, malnourished, something that is fixable -- he’ll visit kimura in the morning and see if she has anything to rid him of the ringing in his ears.

he doesn’t remember making it back to his room, but he does. it takes him a while to settle into bed, flat on his back, glasses digging into the space between his eyebrows. it takes him longer to close his eyes and even longer to stop monitoring his own breathing.

he leaves the lights on.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first substantial work for danganronpa so i'm a little shoddy on parts of it, but i kind of like how this turned out. a few details about the foundation might be off in some ways - forgive me! this is more a togami-centric work, so i may have neglected stuff that wasn't in focus. i take requests if you have any and feedback is always appreciated! unless of course it's about my lowercase aesthetic in which case don't bother i've heard it all from the portal fandom already


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